hands down Mind/Fire. Good damage and lots of control. Downside is no pet, so if thats something that really matters to you.
Quote:
Real fast note of thanks. I tend to be a snarky jerk on "what's the best" threads because people tend to post idiotic questions. You actually told us what you were going to do and what you think is fun so we can answer you. So thanks!|
Originally Posted by Phaera
Hello folks. Been quite a while since I've played CoH (last time was pre-Going Rogue).
I've got GR now, and have been getting familiar with the game again (and noticing that Praetoria is HARD compared to early Atlas leveling). I'm looking at a couple different character types to work on leveling up, but my big question right now, is about Dominators. I'm trying to decide what is a good one, as far as a nice mix of control and damage, something balanced towards both survival and "kill speed". I do a mix of solo and team stuff, but because my hours can be really odd, I end up soloing a decent amount. Thinking of leveling through the Praetoria content as well, since it is new to me. Any suggestions? I know there have been a few changes to things, so am looking for opinions! |
And pretty much the already given mind/fire is probably the best for what you want. Mind/ is famous for being able to solo hard content, including the whole LRSF including all 8 AVs at once. And /fire is the best damage. Mind/ can also be very affordable.
I have found plant/ and earth/ to also be spectacular primaries for both solo and team play. Plant/ matures fast with seeds of confusion so early and earth/ has some of the strongest hard controls out there.
Other than /fire good hard-hitting assault sets include /earth, /ice and /psy.
Those are really the go-to sets and there's not a bad combo among them.
"Hmm, I guess I'm not as omniscient as I thought" -Gavin Runeblade.
I can be found, outside of paragon city here.
Thank you everyone at Paragon and on Virtue. When the lights go out in November, you'll find me on Razor Bunny.
Thanks, exactly the kind of info I was looking for!
Affordable is good, as I know that I'll be premium for a month or so (darn RL) soon, and while I can save my IOs in a second build, SOs will have to carry the day for a bit.
Plant/ looked interesting, but I will admit, I'd given it a try a bit ago and it did not 'grab' me, pardon the pun. I did have an idea for some kind of ice and earth combo, though I've heard it is not the easiest of sets to ease into.
Definitely have to give Mind/Fire a shot though. I enjoy being able to both solo and team, cause sometimes you want to just veg out and smack the heck out of some pixels without anyone assisting, and other times you want to be super social and team up. Of course, being on at 3am or later at times also means you better like soloing! 
Thanks again for the info, I'll check out some guides on Mind/Fire, just to get a feel of what powers are traps, if any.
I'd suggest Plant/Psi or Plant/Fire. May want to give plant a go again. It is one of my favorite control sets in the game.
When Domination is up, or you have a permadom, Seeds of Confusion is a thing of beauty. It recharges quickly, increases kill speed dramatically and makes fighting most groups of enemies very safe.
Put it with Drain Psyche in Psi and you are a killing machine. Fire of course is the damage king, but there is something to be said for survivability.
Plant also has a sleep along with the confuse, spot for healing, and assorted other places for incredibly easy to aquire high recharge sets if you plan on getting an IO build together. Mind has two sleeps and two confuse powers of course, so is even easier. You get Seeds of Confusion at level 8 on a plant dom, which is arguably better than Minds level 32 if you dont mind eating a little aggro.
Simple trio; for pure range, Mind/Fire, for AOE, plant/thorn, and for melee,elec/stone.
(Bonus, if you're living in SO-land, pick up Phase Shift too. It's just an amazing oh-dear power that needs no slotting to be valuable, freeing up room for the other powers.)
Quote:
Earth/Ice is much easier than Cold/Earth. Cold is not bad, it's just trickier to play.
|
Originally Posted by Phaera
Plant/ looked interesting, but I will admit, I'd given it a try a bit ago and it did not 'grab' me, pardon the pun. I did have an idea for some kind of ice and earth combo, though I've heard it is not the easiest of sets to ease into
|
"Hmm, I guess I'm not as omniscient as I thought" -Gavin Runeblade.
I can be found, outside of paragon city here.
Thank you everyone at Paragon and on Virtue. When the lights go out in November, you'll find me on Razor Bunny.
Earth/fire/fire is pretty great.
Really anything /fire is pretty great.
@Dysc, on virtue:
Virtue blues: Overnight (DP/MM), Kid Ridiculous (FC/rad), Panorama (Ill/time)
Virtue reds: Block Party (SS/SD), Goldcrush (earth/fire), Deadwire (claws/elec), Snowcrush (ice/kin)
For AoE damage purposes, I'd argue that fire/psi/mu is one of the best combinations once one has permadom. There is a great damage output, and you a pet that heals and can be made permanent is quite nice.
@Kalen on Virtue
Best Damage? /Fiery
Best Control for soloing? Mind or Electricity
What's left is to normalize all Assassin Strikes and improve Stalker's old sets (Claw, MA and EM)! You don't need to bring back the missing PbAoE attack. You just need to make the existing ones better! For example, make Slice a WIDER and LONGER cone.
For single target, I'm a fan of Energy. Power Push is deadly nowadays and has solid control and accuracy bonuses. And contrary to other secondaries, you don't have to wait till 35/38 to form a full ranged attack chain. By level 10 or so you have 3 blasts and you're set.
Yeah, Energy is pretty insane on SOs. You get a full ranged attack pattern by 10, and by 35 you can have a full melee attack pattern that includes Total Focus and Energy Transfer for crying out loud.
It's not a set I'd advocate for too strongly as I am personally very enamoured of melee AOE; but its strengths are pretty evident if you're not going that way.
Mind/Fire, you don't say?
Dang... shoulda rolled Cerise with that. Although I did Mind/Psy, and was pretty happy with it overall. Stayed with a theme, though, all mind powers.
Perhaps I'll roll a Mind/Fire just to see...
August 31, 2012. A Day that will Live in Infamy. Or Information. Possibly Influence. Well, Inf, anyway. Thank you, Paragon Studios, for what you did, and the enjoyment and camaraderie you brought.
This is houtex, aka Mike, signing off the forums. G'night all. - 10/26/2012
Well... perhaps I was premature about that whole 'signing off' thing... - 11-9-2012
While may not get the strongest controls out there, Fire/Fire is an absolute beast. Fiery Embrace boosts the damage of both your primaries and secondaries by a huge amount, and with PermaDom, Flashfire is up every fight - and less mobs resist stuns than other type of hard controls from what I've seen. You pets (notice the plural) add an INSANE amount of damage and can distract more than one mob away from you, which is also a blessing. Add the Fire APP and Pyronic, and you're an AoE Death Machine. Katen is my fastest level 50 to date and became my main toon within two days of rolling him. The only downside is that you're pretty dependant on Flashfire and Cinders for control, but in the end, it plays like a very controllery Blaster on steroids.
One thing worth mentioning is the fact that it is inadvisable to be a non-villain as a Dom and that sounds exactly what you intend.
The Frenzy alignment power is an absolute must have for a Dominator and it is pure villain only.
It gives you 100% domination so you can initiate perma-dom before you get into combat.
Quote:
On teams Domination builds really quickly anyway. On an 8 man you'll be at Domi Levels by the end of the first spawn. Or you can do what I do. Pick on Greys outside the mission while people are farting about, you'll probably be close to Domination by the time the mission starts. |
Originally Posted by Giant2005
One thing worth mentioning is the fact that it is inadvisable to be a non-villain as a Dom and that sounds exactly what you intend.
The Frenzy alignment power is an absolute must have for a Dominator and it is pure villain only. It gives you 100% domination so you can initiate perma-dom before you get into combat. |
Frenzy is lovely for villainous Domis, but you're not gimped if you don't have access to it in any really meaningful way.
Quote:
Pfft.|
Originally Posted by Giant2005
One thing worth mentioning is the fact that it is inadvisable to be a non-villain as a Dom and that sounds exactly what you intend.
The Frenzy alignment power is an absolute must have for a Dominator and it is pure villain only. It gives you 100% domination so you can initiate perma-dom before you get into combat. |
If you can't engage one or two spawns carefully because you don't have a clicky power to build your domination, you shouldn't be playing a dom. Frenzy represents spending a power to get a power that does something you already do. If anything I'd call Frenzy an unnecessary ease - or a crutch.
Quote:
While Mind/Fire can perform very well at range, it performs best in melee due to Incinerate.|
Originally Posted by Talen Lee
for pure range, Mind/Fire
|
Per OP, Mind/Fire is absolutely king.
-Mind brings fast hard control, which is best for doms (alot of soft controls arent boosted by domination, and slow activation times hurt dominators more than other ATs.)
-Fire brings fabulous single target damage in Incinerate, Fire Blast, and Blaze, all of which have good activation times and base damage. It also gets a great self buff in fiery embrace.
-Unless you dip heavily into patron/ancillary pools for aoe, your aoe damage won't be as good as other doms (and that said I would recommend /ice mastery for Sleet and S/L defense anyways), your aoe control will also not be as good as say earth, fire, or plant due to the recharge times of total domination and mass confusion, but with good recharge they can be up whenever you would really need them for the most part.
-The single target control as well as the utility and properties of mind control and single target superiority of fiery assault make up for the lesser aoe potential of the combination, imo.
Quote:
Hrm. While I would agree that if you can't build Dom any other way, you're bad at playing Dominators, I wouldn't call it a crutch. It's just a really nice convenience power. Of course you can build Dom up by fighting or snipe canceling or whatever, but Frenzy is just incredibly useful.|
Originally Posted by Talen Lee
Pfft.
If you can't engage one or two spawns carefully because you don't have a clicky power to build your domination, you shouldn't be playing a dom. Frenzy represents spending a power to get a power that does something you already do. If anything I'd call Frenzy an unnecessary ease - or a crutch. |
It means you're back in the fight at full power quicker.
Besides, you're hardly "spending" a power. You don't dedicate a power slot to it. You don't need to slot it. The only requirement is that you have the Villain alignment.
Return to Battle is an unnecessary ease. So are inspirations. So are IOs. So is basically anything that makes things easier in this game. Doesn't mean they're a crutch if you use them, unless you derive pleasure from making things needlessly more difficult for yourself.
Support Guides for all Corruptor secondaries and Fortunatas
The Melee Teaming Guide for Melee Mans
The Melee Teaming Guide for Melee Mans
Quote:
I can't speak for Talen but I had the same reaction he did. Mostly in response to Giant's post:|
Originally Posted by Silas
Hrm. While I would agree that if you can't build Dom any other way, you're bad at playing Dominators, I wouldn't call it a crutch. It's just a really nice convenience power. Of course you can build Dom up by fighting or snipe canceling or whatever, but Frenzy is just incredibly useful.
It means you're back in the fight at full power quicker. Besides, you're hardly "spending" a power. You don't dedicate a power slot to it. You don't need to slot it. The only requirement is that you have the Villain alignment. Return to Battle is an unnecessary ease. So are inspirations. So are IOs. So is basically anything that makes things easier in this game. Doesn't mean they're a crutch if you use them, unless you derive pleasure from making things needlessly more difficult for yourself. |
"One thing worth mentioning is the fact that it is inadvisable to be a non-villain as a Dom and that sounds exactly what you intend. The Frenzy alignment power is an absolute must have for a Dominator and it is pure villain only."
Emphasis added by me. My response would have been: "Pure drivel and poppycock." Absolute must? Come now, my good man!
Quote:
Oh, right. Yeah, I wouldn't say its inadvisable. Just makes life a lot easier if you go Villain.
|
Originally Posted by Rad_Avenger
I can't speak for Talen but I had the same reaction he did. Mostly in response to Giant's post:
"One thing worth mentioning is the fact that it is inadvisable to be a non-villain as a Dom and that sounds exactly what you intend. The Frenzy alignment power is an absolute must have for a Dominator and it is pure villain only." Emphasis added by me. My response would have been: "Pure drivel and poppycock." Absolute must? Come now, my good man! |
Support Guides for all Corruptor secondaries and Fortunatas
The Melee Teaming Guide for Melee Mans
The Melee Teaming Guide for Melee Mans
Sure, but I use Call to Justice far more often than I'd ever use Frenzy.
I'm a bit of a peacenik though.
Frenzy is awesome, I used it for my doms before they had enough recharge for perma dom.
Is Frenzy also affected by recharge buffs? I get the impression CtJ is.
None of the Alignment powers should be affected by recharge buffs.
Admittedly, CtJ is arguably a more useful power in that it buffs you and your team, so if you use it whenever it's up it's a pretty good deal. I just really like the convenience of Frenzy. Any time I die, I can be back in the fight at full capaciy much faster.
Unless I'm dying more than once every 6 minutes, which tends to not be the case 
Support Guides for all Corruptor secondaries and Fortunatas
The Melee Teaming Guide for Melee Mans
The Melee Teaming Guide for Melee Mans
Hello folks. Been quite a while since I've played CoH (last time was pre-Going Rogue).
I've got GR now, and have been getting familiar with the game again (and noticing that Praetoria is HARD compared to early Atlas leveling).
I'm looking at a couple different character types to work on leveling up, but my big question right now, is about Dominators.
I'm trying to decide what is a good one, as far as a nice mix of control and damage, something balanced towards both survival and "kill speed". I do a mix of solo and team stuff, but because my hours can be really odd, I end up soloing a decent amount. Thinking of leveling through the Praetoria content as well, since it is new to me.
Any suggestions? I know there have been a few changes to things, so am looking for opinions!